Local authorities should not have to cover legal aid funding deficiencies, the Court of Appeal has said, while upholding a mother's challenge against a placement order. A placement order allows the local authority to place a child with suitable adopters following care proceedings, even if the parents do not agree.

In M (A Child)the court was asked to consider whether a family court judge fell into error last year by failing adequately to make findings on the risk of future harm in the event that the child, who is now five, is returned to her mother's care. Also at issue was whether the judge gave a sufficiently clear and reasoned analysis of the factors leading him to conclude that permanently separating the child from her mother would be in the child's interests.

The judgment, published this week, states that in October 2014 and May 2015, the mother, a trained nurse, took her daughter to hospital after administering an epi-pen, believing that the child was suffering an allergic reaction. Medical opinion was that the epi-pen was administered unnecessarily on both occasions. The mother was arrested in June 2015 on suspicion of fraud and neglect. The child has been in foster care since. The judgment says no charges were pursued, and experts concluded that the case was one of the actions of an overanxious mother.

In June last year, the family court dismissed the mother's application to discharge a care order made in March 2016, and made a placement order pursuant to section 21 of the Children Act 1989.

Lady Justice King, giving the Court of Appeal's lead judgment, allowed the mother's appeal and remitted the matter to be reheard.

The mother applied for her appeal costs - approaching £20,000 in view of counsel's fees - to be paid by the local authority. The mother argued that her appeal had succeeded and that she and her husband could 'ill afford expenditure on this scale'. The local authority argued that it was not unreasonable to defend the appeal 'and that it too has many calls on its stretched resources'.

Deciding not to make a costs order, King said: 'I have considerable sympathy with the position of MR, who is not eligible for legal aid and who has incurred such substantial costs in seeking to have her child returned to her. However, it is not possible to say that the local authority has been unreasonable in defending the judge's decision, it being a decision that was in line with all professional advice and was supported by the children's guardian.

'Unfortunately, as was said in Re T by Lord Phillips, justice cannot demand that any deficiency in legal aid funding should be made up out of the funds of the local authority.'

King considered postponing a decision until after the rehearing. 'Had there been a clear case of documented financial hardship and factors that suggested unreasonableness on the part of the local authority, a postponement of that decision might be justified. But in my judgement, neither of these indicators is strong enough to justify that unusual course,' she said.

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This is an example of how the Highly Lucrative Child Abuse Industry operate.

They treat it like a business and will do anything to hold on to the captive children.

In the secret family courts, no accusation is too absurd and where hearsay evidence abounds. Families are prevented from challenges accusations by being told insufficient time. The objective here being to hold on to the child long enough so as to claim it will be traumatic to move them. That they were removed kicking and screaming counts for nothing.

Anon 1109/1600/1735 That absolutely demonstrates the argument I made below and on various other cases in the last few years that many judges seem not to understand the 'paramountcy', or resent such an imposition on their power to decide. I would be surprised to be told that the judge produced a well-reasoned argument, that would convince most disinterested people, why the child would be brought up in a, first, loving, and competent environment that would on the balance of probabilities give him/her a more pleasant childhood. And the same obligation should be upon the Soc Services, which similar cases have shown, hate being 'defeated', when their 'victory' must depend absolutely on the best outcome for the child.
And Anon at 0815 is equally grotesque: 'It's just a game/fight; you know the rules and, if you don't like them, don't play.' But the 'you' disguises the fact that the one who is the centre of the case is a child, who has no funds and is only recognised through an intermediary. If a really criminal destitute adult was being threatened with detention or similar, their defence would be funded by the State. Family Court judges seem still to be in the Victorian age: your children belong to you and, short of beating them (only recently a crime), you can keep them in really nasty circumstances.
Anon at 1313 shows it's not just the judges with this attitude: a mere 'fingers crossed' solution for the child is to be preferred because it's 'a lot cheaper'!

It is my understanding of the law that the primary consideration of the court must be the welfare of the child.

The primary proposition of the Social Service's report was that it was the father's right to father his son, even if this meant destroying the clear family bond that N had established since birth with H&W.

Your suggestion, anon @ 11:09 and 16:00, appears to be that N and his family are the devil incarnate but, despite this, the Court awarded custody to N. In the absence of evidence of an immense miscarriage of justice, I find the foregoing rather had to reconcile.

My decision to support N, N's mother (who had asked H&W to adopt him) and my son and his wife, may just have had something to do with the fact that N's mother spent the 5 months before he was born in a refuge to escape the father and the father's family (with whom N would live) had an 'interesting' reputation in their local community. I could continue, but I think you get the point.

I only spent £25,000 because I genuinely believed that it was in N's best interest to be parented by H&W.

My point is that it should not have cost me £25,000 to resolve the matter before a judge. The system is, as you correctly observe, dysfunctional, and needs to be fixed to give everyone fairer access to justice.

Is that truly milking the system? Or is it solicitors working hard in a dysfunctional system, but actually expecting to get paid?

This isn't supposed to come across as unfeeling. but maybe the case shouldn't have been fought but agreed that N should have lived with his father? That would have been a lot cheaper. Fingers crossed N grows up with a solid relationship with all of his relatives.

Family law is emotive and gutty and hard work but if you don't have fee paying clients you'd struggle to do solely legal aid. Commercial considerations might play second fiddle to the passion for the work, but they still count.

I agree with Anon 14:31 that "Firms working primarily on legal aid family work are barely keeping their heads above water."

..... but I also agree with Anon 14:20 that "barristers and solicitors can continue milking the 'cash cow'" - where private clients are footing the bill because they cannot get legal aid.

..... because the family law system is broken.

I spent over £25,000 supporting my son (H) and his wife (W) who were seeking to adopt an 18-month old boy (N) who had been in their care since birth, at the request of the biological mother (who was part of their extended family.) This would have allowed him to be in regular contact with his mother (who would be known to him as an Aunt until he was old enough to understand what had happened) and she would see him grow up and be part of his extended family.

The father decided to apply for custody. The local social services had nothing but praise for the care that N had received from H&W, but then said that it was the father's right to have custody even though this would mean that N had no prospect of future contact with his mother.

The case took so long to come to court that we ended up with an enormous bill, and the court gave N to his father!

We couldn't afford to appeal, and even if we could have afforded to do so, it would have taken so long to run the appeal that N's bonds with H&W would have been broken and moving him back from his father to H&W would have been even more damaging to him.

The whole system needs to be simplified, fast-tracked and less costly, with proper legal aid fees being paid to solicitors and barristers who could focus on the real issues of the case and not the unduly complex and long-winded legal process.

There seem to be a number of comments here that are generated by the hearts rather than the heads of those making them. They suggest a feeling that solicitors should work for little or nothing because the government will not provide state funding for those who consider that they deserve it but cannot obtain it.

One of our Service user has spent nearly up to half a million pounds to try and get Justice, with regards to Her Private Law case.and the case still continues.

In a lot of Cases, a lot of Solicitors will not even take on an Adoption Appeal, and Parents obviously have to go Litigant in Person, with a Mackenzie Friend, that is up to date on new legislation and Practice protocol.or in some Parents just give up.

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